Police guilty in shootings

NEW ORLEANS - A federal jury on Friday convicted five current or former New Orleans police officers of civil-rights violations in one of the lowest moments for city police in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: the shooting deaths of a teenager and a mentally disabled man as they crossed a bridge in search of food and help.

The case was a high-stakes test of the Justice Department's effort to rid the Police Department of corruption and brutality. A total of 20 current or former New Orleans police officers were charged last year in a series of federal probes. Most of the cases center on actions during the aftermath of the Aug. 29, 2005, storm, which plunged the flooded city into a state of lawlessness and desperation.

Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen, Officer Anthony Villavaso and former officer Robert Faulcon were convicted of civil-rights violations in the shootings that killed two people and wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge less than a week after the storm. They face possible life prison sentences.

Retired Sgt. Arthur "Archie" Kaufman and the other four men also were convicted of engaging in a brazen cover-up that included a planted gun, fabricated witnesses and falsified reports. The five men were convicted of all 25 counts they faced.

Shaun Clarke, a defense attorney and former federal prosecutor who moved from New Orleans to Houston after Katrina, said the verdicts are "critically important" to the Justice Department's reform efforts.

"It's a huge verdict for the government," he said. "Of all the cases concerning alleged misconduct by police officers after Katrina, this was the one that had the highest national profile."

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said the verdicts send a message to "public officials, and especially law-enforcement officers, that they will be held accountable and that any abuse of power will have serious consequences."

Faulcon was found guilty of fatally shooting Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, but the jury decided his killing didn't amount to murder. Faulcon, Gisevius, Bowen and Villavaso were convicted in the death of 17-year-old James Brissette. Jurors didn't have to decide whether Brissette was murdered because they didn't hold any of the defendants individually responsible for causing his death.

Kaufman, who was assigned to investigate the deadly encounter, wasn't charged in the shootings.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who invited the Justice Department last year to conduct a thorough review of the Police Department, said the verdicts "provide significant closure to a dark chapter in our city's history."

In March, the Justice Department issued a blistering report that said New Orleans police officers have often used deadly force without justification, repeatedly made unconstitutional arrests and engaged in racial profiling. Landrieu has said he expects the federal review to bring about court-ordered reforms.